


I. Forcing the Narcissus, and II. Ghost

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Saiyuki, Saiyuki (Anime & Manga), Saiyuki Burial
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:46:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25654618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: 1. Forcing the Narcissus: Ukoku's plans collide with destiny.2. Ghost: After Koumyou's gone, Ukoku rattles on in the hellworld he created for himself.
Relationships: Koumyou/Ukoku
Kudos: 3





	1. Forcing the Narcissus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theskywasblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/gifts).



> WARNING: Ukoku is not a nice man and ugly things happen around him.
> 
> Written for Theskywasblue for the 2010 Saiyuki Yuletide_Smut Dreamwidth Community Giftfic Exchange. Beta'd by Whymzy.

****

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Transcription of Oral Deposition of Ken’yuu aka Ukoku Sanzo aka Dr. Nii  
submitted for Discovery, High Court [Name redacted]  
Presiding judge, [Name redacted]  
9th Day, Osmanthus Month, Year of the Metal Tiger  
[Location redacted]

I can say whatever I like? Well, well, I never expected that. 

How far back do you want me to go? This doesn’t begin with birth, but you would know more about that than me. 

I was always a solemn, serious boy, more interested in the worlds revealed in a raindrop or spiders’ webs, in books and microscope slides than sports or other entertainments typical to other children of my age and gender. Is that far enough in the past for you? 

My talents for observation and strategy spared me from the usual schoolyard miseries for, early on, my parents saw fit to send me to where they wouldn’t be inconvenienced by the raising of me. The boarding school they chose was renowned for its spartan discipline. It was said to ‘rear character’, an interesting choice of phrase; how explicit do you want me to get? 

Then again, omniscience is a handy sort of talent, so let’s address that later. 

The first time I saw Koumyou … well! 

I almost missed him at first, you know. He, himself, was vaporous, like something rising off a waterfall before it folds back into the mist — something I had to stretch to catch. I had to sharpen my attention and all my senses. Cagey bugger!

I was in the study hall putting out little teaser samples of my wares — you know, to the customer base. My side-business in smut was thriving. (You’d be surprised at the level of hardcore found in monasteries. On second thought, maybe you wouldn’t.) My busiest time was when the afternoon work-session was over and the monks were on a scheduled break. Imagine summer heat saturating every pore with moisture, weighting the limbs, sucking the life-force out the very bottoms of our feet. My fellow acolytes were bored, tired, and there was nothing which needed doing. In the heat, their appetites would sway southward, and I had just the thing. 

There I was, laying out my snares in the classroom in my usual seat by the doorway, when two shadows moved across my back, blocking the sun. One of the silhouettes was instantly recognizable as that of Goudai Sanzo — roundtopped, shaggy, huge. The other was so long and lean it made me think of a watchtower. As Goudai tossed off remarks about my unsuitability, I turned to face them and was so dazzled by the sunlight which spilled around the stranger’s form — he was standing right in front of the sun — that I never managed to catch proper sight of his face. 

Then I connected with the energy behind his eyes — not the colour or shape of them which seems to elude me even now, but the intelligence which emanated from them. All it took was a single, silent glance. It first pierced the shadows. It turned into a gaze. 

Do you know how you get a flash of insight inside? Knowledge from some foreign source just downloads itself into your brains? And after it happens, nobody else around you is aware of it, not unless they shared the same download? 

No? That sort of thing doesn’t happen to Immortals? 

Well, just pretend you understand what I’m talking about, because that’s what happened right then. It was instant. Whoosh! Here was someone who seemed to know me, who seemed to see me, who recognized me. I felt as though we shared a sympathetic resonance, at least the same notes, if sounded upon different octaves. Not even my parents had that light in their eyes when they looked at me. 

I suspect my gaze, behind thick glasses, carried too much resemblance to the stunned, unblinking gaze of my parents’ souls while their personalities spent all those long years basting themselves in vodka, self-absorption and existential futility. Off I was bundled to their precious Nietzsche-an academy at the earliest possible age, and although they claimed it was for my benefit, to nurture my scholarly soul, I knew it was really to remove the encumbrance of being seen. It was all about seeing. They couldn’t bear that anyone saw them as they were. Besides, there are things which should never be brought to light. 

You clearly disagree, or I wouldn’t be recounting this sordid blather. 

As it stands, my parents and I are estranged. I haven’t seen, nor spoken, nor written to them in over a decade. I don’t even know if they’re still alive, and I don’t care. 

I mentioned that I was spared from the worst, most directed of the systemic bullying that went on throughout my boarding school. Three lessons strike me as salient. They weren’t part of any formal curriculum, but they were more meaningful and bear more of a lasting impact. I will start with the second lesson first. Chronology doesn’t matter. 

The second lesson began when I actually arrived at the school, a stone fortress converted from an old tuberculosis sanatorium. Some of the rooms even had beds fashioned from old iron lungs. Some of the old medical equipment was still inside. (I specifically remember a hard wooden reclining chair which was bolted to the concrete floor and which could be raised or lowered with a lever that was pumped by the feet. The bolts had seized, so it was never removed. The chair had stirrups where the patient’s heels were set, and there was once a block which could be removed in order to gain access to a person’s private places. That chair might have even been the thing that convinced me to study medicine.) 

The road to the school meandered uphill, and was shaped from an old goat track. The driver and I passed skeletal arms of barren trees. The trees reminded me of the antlered death-masks of pagan kings in the further west, horned kings rising out of their barrows. We drove in under an impressive archway and were met by a beadle whose demeanour and dress was more like that of a sergeant-at-arms. There was not a smile to be seen anywhere. Everywhere the faces were hard and grim; the clothing was hard and grim; the stones were hard and grim. If the sun had shone, the sky still would’ve appeared overcast as if the sunlight had bled out with the life from the lungs of those long-dead tuberculosis patients — heh, Goudai’s lungs. That place had been so resolutely purged of all cheer. Not even the monastery had been as cheerless, although it tried harder. 

While the prefect led me to my dormitory, I glimpsed another boy near my age backed into a corner. He had watery blue eyes, a slack lower lip and a face that was born to a lifelong career as a scapegoat. His entire demeanour spoke of a wounded seal in killer whale territory. A pod of about seven boys had circled to terrorize him. 

I don’t remember the exact words which were exchanged. These sorts of transactions all share a dispiriting sameness, so here’s an approximation: 

Them: “You’re not sorry you stole. You’re sorry you got caught.” 

Him: “No, no, no. Somebody put that in my dresser.” 

Them: “Somebody? Why would anybody do such a thing? You can’t defend that claim, can you? You’re a liar as well as a thief. Do you know what we do with sneaks?” 

I should mention here that my father had never sheltered me from the sight of people being beaten. 

You would’ve thought the violence was directed against me; my response to shows of force was always the same: my pulse would race, my stomach and chest would grow tight, my forehead and the palms of my hands would grow clammy, blood would rush to my face and chest, sounds would seem to come from very far away and my throat would constrict until I was in imminent danger of releasing the appalling tension through tears. 

Tears! Release them in the presence of my father, and he would’ve instructed those enforcers to turn their boots on me. Tears would’ve been the ultimate disloyalty, and in that boarding school, a mortal error! — but it was while in that state of imminent peril from my father that I discovered something useful. As my physical body seemed to cave in on me, constricting itself to the point that I would surely die, I was squeezed out of it. I — meaning that part of my self which is aware, that which observes what happens around me — was forced right out of my body, literally out the top of my head. 

Doesn’t that sound strange? It’s the truth, though. There’s even a technical term for it: dissociation. From that lofty place, I watched the events unfold. I felt no terror. It was calmer state of being — detached, unaffected by the brutality. I also had a clearer sense of what I must do to protect myself, which was to wait and observe the proceedings in this state of extreme detachment until my father reached the condition of blood-glut, and then we could all walk away from the scene. 

I can never remember what happened after I would leave, but it was probably something harmless, like dissecting an insect, a small animal or a flower in the interests of science. 

So, I have this nifty gift. During the scene with the boy, Reiji — that’s the name of the one who was being bullied at the academy — I underwent a similar state of detachment, floating apart from the scene, serenely watching it. 

Me to the Prefect: “Aren’t you going to intervene?” 

Prefect: “What for? How else are we supposed to teach these little bastards not to nick other people’s stuff?” 

Me: “How do you know he did it?” Whereupon the prefect sent me a look I’d never beheld prior. 

Surprising, isn’t it, given the type of man my father was and the type of men he associated with? You would imagine withering scepticism would be our household’s most characteristic flavour of communication. It wasn’t. My father’s neck and jowls might change colour. He might deflect tension by taking a drink or shifting some papers around on his desk, but I’ve never observed any expression of disbelief cross his face, not even when it was clear to all bystanders that he was being deceived. To be sure, he had his outbursts — frequently, in fact — but those always about minor infractions. The serious offences were as though he expected them. There was no need to accuse the liar of lying because it was automatically assumed that lying was normal. In this respect, the school my father had chosen for me reflected his world perfectly. 

During my brief exchange with the prefect, a series of questions circulated through my thoughts: if the stolen item had been found in Reiji’s room, how had the other boys discovered it? It didn’t appear as though the rest of the dorm’s occupants had been subjected to a search. Had this Reiji been suspected of stealing things before? Had someone witnessed him stealing it and told the others? He didn’t look like he had the guts to engage in such high-risk behaviour. Had he willingly opened his room up to inspection? It did not seem like the way a thief would act, letting others ransack personal possessions in order to seek for stolen goods. Since these other boys could only have found the item, therefore, by rummaging through his dresser without his permission or awareness, why was it so difficult to believe that someone might’ve planted the article there without his permission? Reiji’s limp, already defeated nature made him look like an entertaining sort of target for mischief-makers. I had seen it before — amongst my father’s men, there were always one or two who were naturally picked on by the others — but why would anyone go through such careful and tedious Machiavellian plotting and counter-plotting? 

Patience. The explanation is more banal than this build-up would lead you to expect. 

I didn’t voice these questions because my wisdom, as opposed to instincts, told me that they would’ve only succeeded in confusing the prefect. Some individuals are deeply attached to the Occam’s Razor view of reality, but when it comes to human motives, the simplest explanation is not necessarily the true one, nor is it even the most likely in many cases. People tend to respond more unpredictably and brutally to being confused and uncertain, than to being flat-out wrong — especially if they’re the sort who seldom believe they can be mistaken. Besides, I had just arrived at the school and had no idea whether Reiji was innocent, and besides, I didn’t really care — apart from the interesting puzzle he presented. So I held my tongue. 

I guess, by your standards, that makes me complicit. 

Must be nice to be Divine. Were you ever human? Do you remember what it was like to live in confusion and darkness? To not know and not even be aware of how little you do not know? And to pay for what you do not know in bruises and blood or worse? 

There I was, incarcerated for my entire childhood in such a place — a place where suspicion, scepticism and outright disbelief were the automatic responses from people in positions of authority and, indeed, through much of the civilized world I was yet to discover. It was only later, when I met Koumyou, that this conclusion turned out not to be a constant, and threw all my carefully wrought theses into jumbles. In the meantime, however? I had to cope with this boarding school culture of never being believed. 

It didn’t matter if one was innocent or guilty. Ergo one might as well be guilty. 

I never counted on omniscience above all, though. Did the Sanbatsushin really know what I was doing all along? Did you? Amazing! Was it fun to watch?

Anyway, getting back to the point, my gift for dissociation had a negative side. So it was that when my gaze met Koumyou’s and I felt the recognition and my body’s response to it, I automatically blocked it — my dissociation kicked in as a reflex. All it takes is a pounding heartbeat and racing pulse and — Whoosh! — up I go, which leaves the body vacant and unresponsive with all the spiritual fire of a dead fish. Breathless. 

Koumyou left me breathless. 

Then the full solar eclipse passed as he walked on, leaving me fully blinded by the sunlight that rushed in to fill his vacuum. 

I scooped up every paper I could reach and stuffed them into my satchel without a care for creases or tears. I probably left most behind in the hands of idiots who never paid for them. It didn’t matter. They were proxies for intimacy. There was no need for them. Instead, I suddenly wanted the real thing. I needed to know more about this visitor. It was a visceral need, like hunger, like arousal, only even more intense, like life and breath. What was this connection we shared? I had to know. 

Mercy me, what am I babbling on about? Odd fancies ambush me once in awhile. 

Before I engaged the stranger in conversation, they were both gone. All I caught were Goudai Sanzo-Houshi’s mutters about my appearance: how I seemed to be so perfect for the role of a scroll-bearer, how adept I was in Buddhist powers and knowledge of the sutras, how strong I was and how others found me a natural leader, but what a fraud I was. What a deceptive, lying, cheating charlatan of a monk I was! I didn’t even know they had been discussing the scrolls. I didn’t care. I only wanted to see the stranger and tell him that Goudai was dead wrong. I was qualified … for him. 

Can you imagine how infuriating it is to be so near to the first person you’ve met who can penetrate that tarry sludge which we all swim in, the one which clouds our senses and keeps the light of wisdom veiled, but you cannot touch him, or speak to him, or even find him? Goudai and Koumyou were gone so quickly, I couldn’t even chase after them. I tried, but they had already disappeared into some sanctuary from which I was barred. 

Instead I could only make do with questions: who was he? Where did he come from? Why was he here? 

None of these questions needed to be voiced. The dormitories hissed with speculation, and I found my answers there. I spent the entire evening and night on the ochi’en overlooking the garden, listening to the rumours rustle in chorus with cicadas to the backbeat of heart’s pulse. Most of them were innocent whispers, just curiosity and cherished stories. They painted a pretty picture of Koumyou’s whimsy and disarming ethereality, cored with steel, with the very bones of the planet — a man whose eyes were filled with clouds, but whose heart was a pool of gravity-bending light, the wise fool. 

One of the rumours transcended even my capacity for depravity — fancy that! Some idiot accused Koumyou of shtupping his disciple, a four-year-old boy who was said to have the appearance of an angel. Since I’m in the habit of loading every remark with different meanings, it’s always a mystery to me when some idiot lets this race across his yap without a pit-stop in the brain first. 

Koumyou appeared as I raked leaves in the garden the next day and poked his finger right on the sore spot. “You remind me of my Kouryuu.” 

He never explained why, although I asked. Instead we exchanged some banter over why I wanted to become a Sanzo. 

I patronized him. “Because becoming a Sanzo is the most difficult thing a person can do, and everything else has come so easily to me, I find it boring.” 

He insulted me in return. “If you find everything so boring, you must be a very boring person.” 

Notice how he put the responsibility for excitement or boredom squarely back on my shoulders? I never could decide whether he was the wisest man alive or the most foolish. Koumyou certainly wasn’t risk-averse. 

Any further discussion about my future was put off by his pursuit of yams. You heard that right: the vegetable, yams. I thought it was a ploy to slip away politely, having reached a tacit agreement to disagree. I was wrong. Koumyou really wanted to roast some. He came back from the garden with a small basket filled with them. Together, we built a bonfire out of the leaves and twigs I had raked together. 

These were the sorts of things he probably did with four-year-old Kouryuu. I definitely did not want to become a substitute for a child or some other form of psychological comfort food. I had this weird desire to be much more than that. (Not to worry, I’ve strangled that impulse since.) I decided to end any comparisons he might make between Kouryu and me forever. It was as simple as a lascivious squeeze past him as he tried to walk through a door. 

I think it was the door to the kitchen or maybe the garden shed. It was a tight fit in either case, and by the time we met halfway, there wasn’t a chance he would ever see Kouryuu’s reflection in me again. 

It was supposed to end there. I expected him to react with confusion, at the very least, perhaps even a bit of disgust and hauteur. The overtones were too blatant, unmistakeable. If I was really lucky, he might even push me like most men would’ve in his place, forcefully, in outrage, and I could laugh all the way to the dorms, having won the higher ground and having called him out for prurience and hypocrisy. He must’ve read the challenge and amusement in my eyes. Instead, he met me with challenge and amusement of his own. Neither of us budged an inch, until the realization finally started to soak into my appallingly sluggish brains (really!) that overtones did not bother him in the slightest. In fact, he was enjoying them, basking in them. 

Whereas I was harder than a seismic drill, stiffer than a tectonic plate, pointier than a 21-gun salute. 

He reached up and touched my cheek. 

“Lovely.” 

Then he gave me a chaste little kiss on my cheek and sauntered off, carrying a set of tongs for the yams. I lost my head. 

“Hey!” I laughed at his back. “Is that all it takes to make you happy?” 

He wriggled his hips and started shoving yams into the embers. Then he sat back and looked at the sun as it started to set. “It’s good to be alive.” 

I could’ve wept. 

Instead we sat and commented on the astonishing numbers of crows and ravens that seemed to be hovering around the monastery. I remember how Koumyou remarked that crows were the only birds that weren’t governed exclusively by instinct, that they had the intelligence to puzzle out solutions to intricate problems. That stuck with me. That, and the thought that the real reason these birds were probably drawn there was because of the quince bushes and crabapple trees on those grounds. The fruit had been touched by frost, turning their juices into over-proof alcohol. The birds were a bunch of drunkards. 

So were we. Koumyou had unearthed some fine bottles of plum wine — not that I needed to get any higher. The night was giddy. The stars, what few of them could be seen around the moon’s dazzling reflection, laughed at us, and we laughed back. 

When the fire and laughter died down, we somehow managed to get tangled into each other’s arms. I remember a wet kiss full of tongue and twistings. I remember shared breaths and sighs. There is a vague recollection of a murmured ‘goodnight’ and I suspect I must’ve passed out on the ochi’en, because that’s where I woke up the next morning, thirsty, a bit hungover, a bit stiff from the hard boards and covered with a white robe. 

The first in that series of lessons I spoke about earlier happened in the first quarter-hour of my arrival at the village train station beneath my academy. The station was about a mile beneath the school where I would spend the remainder of my childhood (unlike the other children, I did not return home for holidays.) I had been instructed to make my way past the roundabout where a livery stable was situated, at which I could hire a buggy and driver to haul me, my trunk and my bottle-lens glasses up the long, dreary hillside. (Horses or mules and carts were used, as shipments of petrol to that isolated part of the country tended to be irregular.) 

A crowd was gathered there, cheering and shouting. Money exchanged hands. I caught glimpses of two dazzling roosters, crowing, strutting, and lashing viciously out at each other. Their colourful plumage and swelling chests were marred by gouts of blood due to the razors strapped to their spurs. 

What struck me most was the look in their eyes, primal and saurian — ancient, ancient, ancient as the hills and almost less sentient. Later, I learned that sort of intelligence was called instinct — dull, pained, unseeing, fixated upon survival, tempered neither by reason nor wisdom, tied to nature. It was the look I had come to recognize, you see, first in the eyes of my parents, and the servants and flunkies at my parents’ house, now in those villagers, eventually in others at the academy, and finally, in almost everybody. Everyone, except Goudai and Koumyou and … okay, maybe there were a few. But only a few. 

The roosters were compelled to act as they did by nature alone. Nature dictated that they should be fired into rage at the mere sight of each other. Rivalry! Conflict! Nature dictated that they should lash out with all the advantages they had. 

Personally, I think instincts are overrated. If instinct is so clever, so dedicated to self-protection, why did it not kick in to quell the birds’ natural antagonism towards each other? To stop the fight, as it were? It never occurred to the birds that there could be another way. They had no choice, but were compelled by their instincts. 

In the end, there was nothing left of either except carcasses, and these village dolts succeeded in accomplishing nothing except to force beauty to marry putrefaction. Even the winner of that wretched scrap bled to death. Its head half-detached from its neck, it was only declared a winner by virtue of being the last cock standing — for a few seconds. 

The men who had gathered to gawk and cheer were somewhat more of a spectacle, tottering off in their blood-glut and useless death, no doubt sparked by barn-distilled liquors and monkey wine. That same look of instinct was predominant in their eyes. It was only the degree of cunning which was more or less acute. Some creatures are sharper; a little more light shone in the eyes, but all of them to the man, beast or creature of the air, are slaves of instinct. 

It was only once I met Koumyou Sanzo-Hoshi that I, myself, learned there might be another way. 

It wasn’t instinct that kicked in when Goudai challenged the Six to meet him behind the mountain, and I demanded an answer to why I was not amongst them. 

Later, when Koumyou subdued me and I was hauled off to my cell, it seemed as though I had been governed by something deep in the Gondwana regions of my brain, reducing my actions to matters of life and death, eating and being eaten. I did feel as though some sort of primordial energy was working through me, but it was greater than instinct. 

My cell was flooded with moonlight. The moon itself seemed to fill the entire southern horizon. 

Did you know there are legends that the moon used to be a living planet? That in its death throes, it gave us the substance from which our emotions spring? 

Emotion was such a new thing for me. I felt like a complete infant in the face of it. The moment Koumyou unlocked the latch, I sprang out of my cell filled with the force of all this newfound emotion. I came up behind him, tiger-like, and pounced, even though with his hand-to-hand combat skills, he could’ve wiped the floor with me. It wasn’t aggression that propelled me. I felt helpless, at the mercy of forces I couldn’t control. I was still dissociating, but while in my own body, like someone being carried along for a ride. 

Koumyou simply rolled with it. He lay under me, his skin glowing with the reflection of moonlight, his eyes soft, his smile kindly. 

“How about I eat you?” I leaned over and breathed in his ear. Then I swiped my tongue in a sinuous line over the ridges and valleys of his throat and jaw, so he would know exactly what I meant. Arousal concentrated in my groin. The heat and pressure had such an intensity of scale, like the inner workings of mountains, that I quaked from the power that flowed through me. My hands as they held his wrists down shook with an old man’s palsy, but wild and primal, filled not only with desire, but with fear. I knew this broke several key monastic tenets — living chastely, purifying one’s self of desire. It was probably too much. I would probably be kicked out (not that I cared, but what a waste of time.)

“Mmm,” was all Koumyou said, as though I had merely tempted him with a dish of different flavoured ice cream. 

I rubbed against him so he could feel my desire. 

Koumyou laughed lightly. He offered no resistance as I ground against him, lying there limply while I tried to inject my passion and heat into his blood with the force of my ruts. His wrists under my hands were loose, his breath calm, his skin cool, whereas I was in a delirium pitched with fever, hyperventilating, intoxicated by my breath. 

“Are you going to ask me if this amuses me?” I leched into his ear. 

“Do you really insist, since the answer is clear enough that it does?” 

That took the wind out of my sails. I recoiled. How could he be so bloodless and unaffected when I was half out of my mind with lust? How could he not feel that undertow? How could he not be pulled in? Didn’t he kiss me just the night before? Was this all one-sided on my part? 

“Please continue, Ken’yuu.” The easy-come, easy-go attitude slew me. “It doesn’t hurt me, and it seems to do you a world of good.” 

No attachments. 

I let out a strange bark of disbelief, utterly shattered. “I thought you were attracted to me.” 

“I am,” he said in that ridiculously placating voice, the mother soothing her fractious child. I felt like I was a four-year-old — hideous, intolerable. So much for feelings.

Laughing hysterically, I got up and ran, coward that I am, wholly aroused and unsatisfied, but unable to violate him. My body still stood at hurrah, but my ego was crushed. 

Even at the tender age of six, I was expected to command enough presence to bend a grown man to my will. In most cases, it’s as simple as convincing someone it was to his advantage. Money helps, but if bribery fails, there are other means. In the case of the men at the village train station, the ones laying bets on roosters … even back then, they might’ve entertained thoughts about robbing, then buggering me and leaving my thrashed body out on that cold hillside to succumb to injuries and elements. I knew this instinctively, with one look at their faces. There was something vaguely threatening about the academy itself, however, which sobered them. It had nothing to do with my presence at all, but the forces which backed me through the advantages of my birth. 

At the monastery, I used this power with the other students. It wasn’t enough to sway Goudai, and it had no effect on Koumyou. How was I to win if I had no power? 

The third formative lesson … hmm, how do I begin to tell you this part of the story? Because it was a series of correlating events, you see, not just one. Although it all comes under the singular umbrella — ha! Let’s see …

Kindly put yourself in my shoes: if the best man to become a sanzo is not the strongest, most intelligent, most cunning, most adept, most powerful amongst the acolytes, what qualifies him? Is heaven’s sanction not the ultimate meritocracy, so what is it that Goudai and Koumyou and that wretched excuse for a human being, Kouryuu, had that I had not? To what avail all those years of formal education, of standing up again and again, picking myself up and facing my opponents to beat them fairly in the arena of their design? Tell me what Goudai and the gods decided I lacked. 

TELL ME! 

In the end there can only be one winner, which is why I originally assumed the governors loved setting up the academy along such lines. It simplified things for them. 

Through most of my incarceration at my academy, I found myself struggling in secrecy against some clone-of-my-father named Reichou, the very boy at the front of the pack harrying poor, gormless Reiji on the day I arrived. Naturally, I fixed my sights on him. 

It took some doing. 

My father had taught me plenty about the inner workings of power, including how powerful men and boys surround themselves with an entourage of protectors. So my experience with him showed me the difference between banging my head uselessly and painfully against a brick wall, and slowly and surreptitiously chipping away at the mortar until it was possible to break through it. While I stayed well beneath the radar — to all curious onlookers apparently dicking around half-arsedly with the foil, the sabre and the épée, and no real interest in learning how to use them — I secretly developed my skills and observed how Reichou cultivated his circle. 

Like my father, he played on their egos and greed by using flattery and bribes. Unlike my father, however, Reichou exuded a sort of feminine sexual charisma. It must’ve driven his henchmen wild, because there was no way on this earth anything would’ve ever come of it, but he surely knew how to dangle that prospect, that carrot hovering over an Alice-like rabbit hole. Mostly, it was conveyed through body language, a cat’s arching of the spine, a jut to the hips, a languorous stretch to the arms and legs, fingers running through locks of hair. Sometimes, it was a sultry, confidential tone to the voice, or a low and insinuating laugh. Sometimes, it came through language laced with barely there double-entendres. 

Of course, the boy used other techniques: spies, tests to weed out the weaklings, snares to entrap the disloyal. He would encourage his thugs to prey on boys like Reiji as a means of working off their frustrations. (Yes, I’m sorry to say that’s all the meaning there was to that scene I described earlier.) If any of his followers started to get too strong or independent, he played them off against each other. But it was that way he seemed to offer up his body without ever offering up his body that hooked the most surprising displays of loyalty and selflessness from his supporters, and which threw them the most off-balance. 

The only way to avoid someone like Reichou is either to beat him or to never appear to shine at anything — to always appear the essence of mediocrity, to never act in an outstanding way which will attract his attention. After that first encounter when he sizes you up, watches you bungle and decides you’re useless to his agenda, you become invisible. Then you are free to do as you like. 

In my case, I needed the invisibility and freedom in order to plan how to beat him. 

It’s a tricky balance because there is very little privacy in boarding schools, so there is always the danger of being seen and recognized. 

As for the business of watching from the shadows and waiting for his fatal error, it was a pretty riddle to unravel. 

I was always on the lookout for hiding spots where I could conduct my business without being observed or disturbed. In the library, I found a small bay window alcove shielded with pines on the outside and covered with thick, dusty, overly embroidered blackout curtains from within. It was plain enough to repel curiosity. 

The librarian kept the key hidden above the eighth stone brick from the floor, three stones from the left side of the door. I could barely reach it, but most often the door was left unlocked anyway because some of the junior staff used to come there after hours instead of congregating in their common rooms. From the mistaken belief that they were alone, they became less guarded and gossiped freely. If I listened carefully, I could find out interesting things, all the petty infatuations and betrayals between staff members, or who was floundering or rallying with the board of governors, or where a fellow could buy a decent set of long underwear (those stone buildings were cold!). Again, I can’t remember the words verbatim, but the first pertinent conversation went something like this: 

Mathematics: “This academy must be very old.” 

Poli-Sci: “Not more than a decade at the most.” 

Mathematics: “You’re kidding.” 

Poli-Sci: “’Fraid not.” 

Mathematics: “I thought it was one of those crusty traditional institutions which have been around since forever.” 

Poli-Sci: “Marketing.” 

Mathematics: “That and other things, all these rituals like morning and afternoon assembly and, well, the fencing.” 

Poli-Sci: “Fencing?” 

Mathematics: “Like polo, the sport of kings?” 

Poli-Sci: “Claptrap. Fencing was only added last year. One of the donors’ sons took it up as a hobby. The family had hired a fencing master to coach him at home, and then sent him to the school so he could continue.” 

Mathematics: “‘He who pays the piper’, is it?” 

Poli-Sci: “Hmm.” 

Mathematics: “So who’s the boy?” 

Mathematics and Poli-Sci discussed how Reichou’s family was tied in with one of the continent’s most powerful corporations. Words like palm oil, coal, property, shipping and banking were bandied around, as well as egregious environmental practices, threatened habitats, taxpayer money bailouts, national armies and the displacement of indigenous people — just another bottom line in a modern shareholders’ manifest. The main thing I extracted from that exchange was, short of orchestrating bloody Bolshevik revolution across twelve countries on three continents, I had to widen my scope of vision well beyond the walls of the academy with regards to Reichou’s circle of protection, and be damned careful and discreet when I finally took him on. 

Hopeless. 

Moreover, I had the misfortune of attracting the eye of one of Reichou’s henchmen, the fencing master entailed to the school because of his hobby. I was tired, burning the candle at both ends to lead this double life. It was sloppy and careless. 

I had gotten into the habit of sneaking behind the secretary’s desk during certain afternoon assemblies to check on the status of our marks. Usually I took great pains to ensure there was no one else around. That day, I didn’t bother to do more than a quick scan into the adjoining professors’ common room, not bothering to really check the sofa against the wall behind the door. It was a lumpy sofa, full of pillows. People blended into the pillows. 

I was so absorbed in the data, I didn’t even hear the fencing master approach. Not until he stood right across from me and asked, “What do you think you’re doing?” 

There was no point trying to pretend I was innocent. 

“No matter how hard I study, I can’t seem to improve my marks.” I took a stab at a partial confession. “I just wanted to see where I stood so I knew how much better I had to do.” 

It wasn’t that far from the truth, but it was weak. 

The fencing master tilted his head. He always wore dark glasses, even in that office where all the lights were turned out and the only illumination came from the computer screen and an open window in one of the back rooms. I couldn’t trace his thoughts visually, but he did seem to be considering. 

“That’s Reichou’s information,” he accused. 

I nodded blankly, thinking. No excuse came to me. 

He touched the mouse, and a tiny window for name and password popped up in the center of the screen. This was purely a stroke of good fortune: after several minutes of inactivity, you see, the program always automatically logged out. This was probably why the secretary never bothered to sign out completely. I knew the password, but I hadn’t bothered to start a new session since I had been sure I could get all the data I wanted with a quick look before it logged out. 

“What’s the password?” The fencing master asked. 

I feigned confusion. “I didn’t know it needed one.” 

“How did you get into Reichou’s file?” I could feel his eyes narrowing at me. 

“It was already onscreen.” That was a lie. I ran fingers through my hair, ready to pull it out by the roots with frustration. “I just wanted access to my file to see how I was doing. His just happened to be open, but it has nothing to do with me. I didn’t even know it was his.” Except I had been so clearly absorbed in reading what was onscreen. “I was looking at the toolbar to see how to navigate through this maze when you discovered me.” 

“And maybe change your marks while you were in there.” It wasn’t a question. 

Thoughts whirlpooled around my head, but I couldn’t fish a likely excuse out of them. “Wouldn’t that be pointless since the professor would have another copy of the final tallies anyway? Wouldn’t they notice any discrepancies right away and go back and double-check all the marks. That’s what I assumed. That’s why I didn’t try to do it.” 

I was talking too much. I shut up. 

The fencing master stood there quietly, chewing on that one. 

I decided I had better throw in some well-munched crow for good measure: “It was impulsive and foolish. I thought I saw a chance to access my information, see where I needed to improve. I regret it.” 

I don’t know if he bought my excuse, but it was a pretty minor infraction on the scale of possible student misbehaviour; he must’ve decided the drama which would ensue from making my infraction public was less valuable than what he could leverage by hanging the threat of expulsion over my head. “I’ll overlook it, this once, but I want you to report to me after your daily lessons from now on. I have some tasks for you.” 

“Thank you, sir. I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.” Kowtow, kowtow, kowtow. 

“You’d better make sure it doesn’t. If I ever see you with so much as a hair out of place, I might decide not to use the usual disciplinary channels.” 

“Thank you, sir.” I cursed my rotten luck. 

“Now, get out of here before I change my mind.” 

It turned out the guy was not fit for blackmail. He hadn’t thought this through, the business of holding dominion over another. He didn’t understand that it took either curiosity or a savage purpose. Every day I reported as ordered, but he was at a loss. There were other servants who handled menial jobs, so if he assigned those to me in order to humble me, it would’ve required an explanation, which would’ve removed the hold he had over me. There was no way he would give me access to his space or paperwork. The paradox irritated him to no end, and it was amusing to watch him get short with other students and teachers because of it — almost worth the nuisance it wreaked over my plans. 

I had to be exponentially more careful than ever, and since he had himself re-assigned to patrol duty on our dorm, that meant I couldn’t sneak out to the library anymore. It seemed like I had struck a dead end. 

Spring rolled around, and the weather warmed up. Like everyone else, I headed outside. Instead of hanging around in the courtyard, kicking balls around, I took to the parkland next to the school. There was an old shrine at the border. It had been mostly abandoned for years and was pretty rundown and dilapidated. It was also situated near the stop where a carter would come and pick up wagonloads of students or teachers during days off and carry them to the village square. That was where I heard the second bit of gossip. 

“What’s this I heard about Reichou’s parents getting a divorce?” 

“You heard wrong.” 

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard.” 

“People like that don’t get divorced.” 

“What do you mean? You make them sound like they’re a different species. I heard that there’s an affair—”

“Pfft.” 

“That would be grounds for a divorce, right?” 

“No. There won’t be, and there have probably been other affairs all along. They weren’t married for sentimental reasons.” 

“Then what for? Why marry?” 

“Mergers and acquisitions. Continuing the dynasty.” 

At the time I thought nothing of it. Divorces, affairs, dispassionate marriages of convenience or alliance, dropping one’s spouses and lovers like toys in a sandbox after one gets tired of playing with them — such things are so common, nobody even bats an eye anymore. I didn’t think this sort of information was useful at all. In fact, I had already rejected it as useless. 

It all came together at the school festival, without any massaging on my part, like one of those lightning bolts from the blue that are supposed to represent the wrath of a god, some destined force of retribution. All that subterfuge and double-dealing? Useless! All that time and energy and effort? Pointless! My presence was completely circumstantial. 

School festivals are the big moment of self-congratulation during the year, where students are expected to show off what they’ve learned, and their instructors preen. Parents are in attendance. At least most parents are. (Mine weren’t. I think the festival coincided with a cruise or something.) 

Reichou’s parents were there … all three of them. You heard that right. 

Most of these people already knew each other. It was a small, tightly knit circle of acquaintances, former schoolmates, relatives through marriage and other alliances — typical rich people carrying on intricate courtly dances. These people got together at the same parties and golf games, relaxed and carried on at the same vacation spots, hatched business schemes together. Sometimes they carried on illicit affairs with each other. 

I was a chemistry nerd that day in my thick glasses, white lab coat and rabbit slippers. The table was stuffed so full of bunsen burners, pipettes, scales, it looked as though re-enervating Frankenstein’s zombie was on the menu for the day. A model of a human genome was strung up overhead, a veritable nebula of coloured bobbles and plastic straws, and we were demonstrating the use of DNA in forensics. 

You would think that all these people would avoid having samples taken for DNA tests like they would avoid a gladiator job in hell, wouldn’t you? After all, it’s the sort of information that can land people into the worst scrapes, and there are all kinds of intelligence organizations who will pay good money for it. Just because we were only children shouldn’t have lulled them into false complacency. Yet, there they were: offering up buccal swabs and hair samples like we were going to immortalize them in some sort of dead flesh museum. 

It just so happened that Reichou’s real biological father was in the line-up right before the boy himself and the man who thought he was Reichou’s real biological father, the one married to his mother. You can’t pay to arrange that sort of coincidence. Reichou’s mother was off watching the junior level fencing matches, which explains how she wasn’t able to run interference. 

If this had been a regular testing lab, the results would’ve taken ages. But because this was set up for the purposes of demonstration, the results were fairly instantaneous. I just happened to be taking and testing the samples and leading the audience through the process of proving DNA by providing the science-geek patter, lines announced like this: 

“See? In this particular case, and from these matching strands of chromosomes, the test concludes that this boy’s real father is that man standing over there.” 

Oopsy!

You’ve never heard such a shocked silence in your life. A quick glance at the guy who thought he was Reichou’s real father revealed that it wasn’t only mine whose face can turn purple. 

The chemistry prof could smell his career evaporating like ethanol. 

“There has to be a mistake.” He bustled over. “You must’ve gotten the samples mixed up.” 

“No mistake.” I pointed at the bags, all carefully labelled with the names, dates and times they were collected. I pointed at the power-point slide of the results projected onto a large screen. “Besides, with the scientific method, it’s easy enough to verify; just repeat the test. Collect fresh samples if you must.” 

“We can’t assume that an experiment is always accurate.” 

Reichou’s mother arrived in that moment. She stopped when everyone turned to stare at her. It took her a few moments looking at the faces of the key players in that little drama for the awful truth to dawn. 

The guy who, up to that moment, thought he was Reichou’s real father turned to me. 

“Do the test again,” he demanded. 

“As you wish,” I said. “Shall we take fresh samples just to make sure there wasn’t a mix-up?” 

Everything afterwards was anticlimactic. 

The man who once was Reichou’s father left the property moments later after yanking some of the boy’s hair out by force and stuffing it into a collection bag — no doubt to get the DNA verified from another, more credible lab. For his purposes, it didn’t matter who the real father was, just as long as a test confirmed he wasn’t the guy. There was no point in making a further spectacle of himself in the process. Donations to the school from that quarter dried up seven days later. 

The mother had to rent a helicopter to fly her out of there. Within a week, a notice appeared in the society columns about their impending divorce. Anyway, it’s a good thing that woman had her own income. 

As for Reichou, he was haemorrhaging in the water now. He remained at the school; it was a form of prison, anyway, for banishing children out of sight and mind of parents. His mother continued to pay for his education, but extra stipends wouldn’t have lent to her status and prestige, so the fencing master was dismissed and the program terminated before the term was up. (I didn’t even bother to attend the few remaining lessons. He would’ve thrashed me to a pulp most likely. Even if I didn’t orchestrate the fall of his paycheque, the guy suspected me of it.) 

For the most part, Reichou’s gang of enforcers shunned him. He became one of the invisible, like me, and the school became a quieter, more studious place. I did notice there was the odd day he came down to breakfast with red, swollen eyes; he wasn’t invisible to me. 

Reichou’s mother’s ex-husband surprised me by not ordering my gangland-style execution. I discovered later that he underwrote all my university expenses and even my graduate degree in medicine. In this way, I was completely liberated from my father’s assumption that I would succeed him in the family business, and from the means by which he could force my cooperation. Come to think of it, thwarting my father’s ambitions may have been this guy’s way of paying the favour forward. 

Alright, so what does this all have to do with Koumyou Sanzo-Hoshi? 

I was just getting to that. 

It’s all in the articulation of schemes, how destiny evolves without force, without pushing. Water doesn’t require a plan to flow. The wind doesn’t require a plan to blow. Some of us must always try to force the Narcissus. We love to see those tall white and gold flowers before their season, before the spring, so we subject them to unnatural regimens of light and heat and water, but the flowers don’t need a plan to grow.

He named me Ukoku, after the crows. In some cultures, the raven was said to have swallowed the sun, turning the land into an eternal winter. Maybe it was jealous. Maybe it wanted the moon all to itself. How could a stupid raven know that, without the sun, the moon disappears? It’s just a dumb bird.

Yes, we got together a few times before the Kinzan Monastery was destroyed. I couldn’t resist Koumyou. I was like that heron about which the poet Mirabai wrote, the one who swallowed burning coals because it thought they were pieces of the moon, which it desired so. 

He was always open, always like the lightest breeze, airy and ethereal, always willing to accommodate me, but there was never any yearning in it. Whereas I had invested everything into him. When I lost, I lost everything.

We made a bet. 

I made a plan. 

The plan was simple: steal the sutra. He would have to pursue me to recover it. I would sell it back to him, one kiss at a time. 

You know how well that worked out. 

Are we done here? Can I go now? 

My heart is a dying planet.

Also, I never tell the truth, and this has all been a lie.


	2. Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ukoku rattles around in the hellworld he created for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally written as an epilogue to _Forcing the Narcissus_ , when I was experimenting with First-Person Singular. It incorporated font colouration, which was based on a much more clever Saiyuki fanfiction which used shades of gray to great effect, but that 4th Wall effect does not work on this platform. So, some subtleties are lost. 
> 
> Whymzy beta'd it a long time ago, but to quote others, I touched it last.

"I’m living the urban dream now, didn’t you know?"

Feet skid across highly polished boards. Almost every surface in the suite has been painted black, except for a few exotic features: the floor, the mantelpiece, the chandelier and various wooden frames and plaster mouldings which gleam golden.

"That’s exotic fruitwood marquetry under my socks, those are moulded plaster ceilings overhead — _high_ overhead — and that thing? That big golden monstrosity in the middle of the ceiling? That thing dripping with golden chains and sculpted fruit? The agent tells me that’s a genuine French Baroque ormolu candelabra. 

"You have to purse your lips and growl in your throat when you roll that one off: _‘Or-r-rmolu-u-u-oo,’_ like the call of a loon. I know you would come up with some weird pronunciation for it, or confuse it with the name of a foreign actor, something ridiculous: ‘Ormolu Bloom’ — something like that. Then you would act as though — scratch that! No, you would honestly believe that everybody else gets it as mixed up as you. 

"I got the place because of that thing. Can’t think why. Bit contrived, isn’t it? — like King Midas touched a table heaped with those fancy fruit cocktails they serve up around tropical resorts. Still, there is something shocking about that burst of gold in all that black. Zen as zen gets. 

"Look, there’s even a pineapple with arrows stuck through it. What kind of ass shoots arrows into a pineapple? Kittens and puppies, yeah. Newborns, yeah. Pineapple, no. That’s just a waste of fake golden weaponry. Ha! 

"Just kidding. 

"Sort of." 

Sunlight pours in through the windows as the kitchen cupboards are opened and their contents rummaged through. They are simple overheads of tongue-&-groove, also painted black. Sunlight on black paint makes the room look weary and old. Even the dust motes twirl sluggishly.

"I’ve even got myself a real, honest-to-god fireplace, some huge river-rock thing. It might be bricked off though. Don’t know. Never tried to light it. What for? The place has central heating." 

The pockets of an old terry cloth dressing gown are rummaged through, and a package of cigarettes and a lighter extracted. The package is empty, so it is promptly crumpled into a ball and tossed into the corner. 

"Guess it’s about time to buy some furniture, too — ’though on second thought, what for? All I’ve ever needed was a comfy desk and chair, which I’ve already got. As for you — you always were content just to stretch out on a mat or cushions across the floor, like some big, tawny wildcat. I’m tempted to say a lion, but that isn’t your style. 

"Or maybe it is. For all I knew, maybe you were more the harem-type after all, ready to service everyone. Maybe you let them do your hunting for you in exchange. I always figured you were more of the tiger type — less social, less organized, a loner, but maybe that was just me." 

A canister is pulled from the cupboard. A spoon rattles ominously inside.

"Damn! I meant to pick up the coffee, yesterday. Isn’t as though I forgot, either, just got too busy. Didn’t want to bother to — Look. Here’s another thing I’m the proud owner of: an automatic espresso maker. A fully functioning, but presently useless automatic espresso-maker. At least I’ve got cigarettes."

The canister is swept aside for a quick rummage in the utility drawer, where a spare pack was squirreled away. 

"At least I’ve got _a_ cigarette."

The living room is marched through, to the bedroom. Tangles of black clothes sprawl over black broadloom. 

"Yeah, I’ve got a washer and dryer now, too, in their own personalized closet — just never remember to buy detergent. Besides, isn’t the maid supposed to wash up? It isn’t like I give her much of a mess to tend. Maybe I should renegotiate the contract."

A soiled terry dressing gown drops to the floor. Black socks remain on, with two white legs rising over them like storks on chimneys. A pair of jeans is shaken free of the tantalus of other clothes. One quick look causes them to be hurled into the corner.

"The little girl the housekeeping service sends over is a cute young thing, almost as fun to tease as old _what’s’er name_ , Former Colleague-chan."

A black knit turtleneck is fished up next, sniffed over, crumpled in a ball and tossed.

"You’d love her. She shakes her finger at me.

"“You’re a very bad man, mister!” Okay, that’s not how she talks. She has an accent, which I make fun of. When she tells me she prays for me, it comes out “I play for you.”

"“Oh, you can ‘play’ all you like, babe!” She ignores me, like Former Colleague-chan.

"Don’t you just love the way their little noses crinkle up? Like they smell something slimy? Doesn’t it make you want to give them something really bad to smell? One day, if she gets me hard enough, I’ll dismantle her religious fervour. Can't stand that stuff!

"Oh, relax. She’s safe so far. No reaction down below. Not so much as a twitch or tingle."

None of the clothes make the cut.  


_[Ya-a-awn.]_ " Looks like I’ll need to haul out The Suit."

The shower and facilities lie beyond the dressing room, a sartorial dream of floor-to-ceiling mirrors and closets in gleaming golden ash-wood with black carpets and ceiling. It runs the length of the building, and is decked with enclosed cedar and camphor shelves for silks and woollens, and miles of hangers.

It’s also completely empty, except for a single pair of black trousers, a single black sports coat, a single black silk dress-shirt, a single pair of soft black leather loafers, a black tie with gold pinstripes, a pair of prescription sunglasses and a diving watch with all its gears showing.

"Now, this!" Arms spread wide and sock-covered feet pivot once inside the empty dressing room, all the wood-grain blurring into a single golden mass."This makes me hard. It’s more primordial than ego, more _Freudian,_ more like some sort of weird, Pavlov’s dog type of response. It happens every time I come in here. Every single time, as though my body gets off on clothes — which, honestly, it doesn’t. It only happens here, in this room. Something about the setting. Maybe you know something about that."

 _[Mutters]_ " Or maybe camphor has aphrodisiacal properties?" 

The shower provides no relief. The warm water slicks over skin like long, fine hair. The soap is sweet and smells of sandalwood, the scent of joss-sticks burned in temples. The strokes he uses on his body are even and firm, but it makes no difference. 

"I don’t know what I’m doing here, chasing your after-image. Its form won’t solidify further, let alone materialize. All that’s left is a vague impression of gold fading into black, until my body starts getting sore."

The shower nozzle is slammed off, the wall leaned against as runnels pour onto the floor. 

"It never ended after you did, you know. I can’t even remember what the fuss was all about. But everywhere I turn, there you are.

"Even though you no longer are." 

The remainder of the droplets are toweled off, and the door bangs open as the floor resounds with furious stomps. The last remaining clothes are stripped from the dressing room.

"It’s all a little high-toned for me, this place, don’t you think?

"You’d get it. You’d know what I’m talking about.

"Maybe you wouldn’t. Something tells me this is your kind of place. You — you would just adapt. It would be the same to you as living in a hovel in some rural backwater. You always had that equal-opportunity lack of concern about things

"Good sake or rice vinegar, you’d knock them both back with the same relish. Place is pricier than hell, but you wouldn’t care."

"You wouldn’t care, but you would stand out. You would make it look tawdry and like all things that turn to dust because you go on forever. And this stuff doesn’t. This stuff gets forgotten in the next season.

"Me, I blend in — so much I disappear, a damned spook haunting my own townhouse. Except for cigarette fumes, nobody would know someone was living here."

Morning ablutions and the chore of getting dressed over, the staircase banister is slid down into the foyer which faces north onto the street. The alarm code punched in, a multi-digit code based on elaborate chemical compound nomenclatures. The front door opened. Shades are slipped over the eyes. The door is stepped through and closed behind.

"I figure I’ve always been more of a condo-man. More modern highrise walls of glass and balconies than gentrified Georgian townhouse restorations. More jazz and blues, than Debussy."

Puffs of vapour are expelled with each breath, fading into the sharp morning air. Five steps are bounced down, and four long strides taken to the front gate where several golden strands of dried grass, gleaming against the wrought-iron gateposts cause a compulsive body reaction, almost like a convulsion. Shoulders are hunched to throw off the cold as the familiar arousal shivers through.

"So, I gotta ask what the hell I’m doing here. Would you have any idea? Even the slightest clue to spare?"

Across the street, in the park, flickers of gold catch his eyes. Skeletal branches of black elm reach into a perfectly clear sky, crested with the last few leaves of October — golden coins shimmering like spatters of paint on an Impressionist canvas, taking his breath away, constricting like a python around his heart.

"I see you in the sky at sunset. I see filaments of you streaming through leaves in the summer. I hear you laughing wherever there’s running water or pouring rain. A kid drops ice cream on the sidewalk, and I think of you. A dog starts after a squirrel and you’re right there. I get so freaking hard thinking of you all the time, but I can’t do a fucking thing about it, because you aren’t here. You aren't here. You aren't here." 


End file.
